From what I can gather, that's RSA, PageRank, and the idea of neural networks and how to train them (or some specific subset or advancement of that I think?).

From what I can gather, that's RSA, PageRank, and the idea of neural networks and how to train them (or some specific subset or advancement of that I think?). I agree these are novel and not something immediately obvious. I think what's happening (what always happens) is that people overreact and have a hard time finding nuance when they are upset. Amazon's one-click patent was ridiculous. Is Google's PageRank? Maybe. Is the RSA algorithm or how to train neural networks? I don't know. Encouraging the development of these by granting limited time monopolies on them seems like it would encourage people to develop them, but if there was a different way to reward the inventors I would be interested in the details (i.e. less blanket statements that it would be as good, but reasoned thought at a minimum and data if we are so lucky as to have some). Sometimes the problem is not the idea but the implementation. Maybe that's the case with some types of patents.